The Javelin continued south. Beverly Beach, Flagler Beach, Ormond-by-the-Sea. Sparsely populated miles of unruined view. More waves, fried-fish shacks, sea oats, and an old beach shop with colorful, inflatable rafts stacked out front, except today they were lashed tightly to a post, flapping in the near gale.
The sky grew darker. Coleman switched to joints. “Thought this was the Sunshine State.”
“Point?” said Serge.
“It’s been an odd-looking week. First all that smoke from those forest fires in Georgia. Then cloudy every other day.”
“I dig it,” said Serge. “These rare gray afternoons evoke a sweet, childhood melancholy in my soul, like when it rained in kindergarten and we had to stay inside and do crafts with library paste and pipe cleaners and buttons, and I made the best project in the whole class, an ultra-powerful rubber-band zip gun, but the teacher gave me a zero because I got her in the eye with a button.”
The road entered a strip of vintage seaside amusement. Arcades, gondola rides, short space needle, tunnel under the boardwalk for people to drive out onto the sand. And a sign:
WELCOME TO DAYTONA BEACH
Serge looked up the road and hit his blinker. “I have to make a stop.”
“No!” shouted Story.
“It’ll be lickety-split. Already know what I want.”
Just past the 7-Eleven stood a large building with racing flags. The Javelin pulled into the parking lot of a NASCAR souvenir superstore.
Serge worked quickly through the aisles, avoiding usual knick-knack distraction by holding palms to the sides of his eyes like blinders. He bypassed officially licensed key chains, bobble-heads and Zippo lighters, finally arriving at a giant display of full-size magnetic door signs with the stock-car numbers and fonts of all the most popular drivers. He grabbed a pair with the giant number “2.”
The cashier rang him up. “You’re a Kurt Busch fan?” i,
“No, I came twice.”
Serge returned to the parking lot and slapped his magnets on the sides of the Javelin. They continued down A1A.
“What’s that place over there?” asked Coleman. “Looks like a giant ship.”
“Supposed to.” Serge grabbed his camera. “The venerable Streamline Hotel, grande dame of old Daytona, where people lined the rooftop to watch auto races when they used to hold them down here on the beach.” Click, click, click. “I’ve often toyed with the idea of living there.”
“Don’t you mean ‘stay’?”
Serge shook his head. “I’m fascinated by the concept of people who live in hotels. Like Howard Hughes’s top-floor place in Vegas, or that rich old woman who spent years in a suite at The Breakers.”
They stopped at a red light. A carload of race fans pulled up beside them. Someone from the other vehicle noticed the magnetic sign on the Javelin and pumped a fist out the window. “Wooooooo! Kurt Busch!”
Serge pumped his own fist. “Wooooooo! I came twice!” Coleman looked back at the hotel. “What’s that smokestack-looking thing on top?” “The bar.” “Can we stop?” “No!” yelled Story.
Serge looked in the rearview at the hotel lobby’s original wraparound glass. “After the races moved out to the speedway on the other side of town, people forgot about the Streamline. Now the rooms are bargain rate, even though it’s a priceless opportunity to live in the magnificent 1940s.”
“Then why don’t they charge more?” asked Coleman.
“Because who besides me wants to live in the forties?”
In one of the Streamline’s upstairs windows, a guest stood with a coffee mug of Irish whiskey. He stared across the ocean with narrow eyes beneath the brim of a rumpled fedora. His tie had a pattern of dice and roulette wheels. Agent Mahoney’s gaze went from the sea down to traffic below on Al A. A two-tone Javelin sat at a traffic light. Mahoney looked back up at the Atlantic and raised his mug. “Where can he be?…”
TWO MILES AWAY
Sea fog was thick as an unusually dim sun set over the ocean. Tide rolled in with a frothy chop. Couples bundled in sweaters against the nippy breeze and strolled along the mean-high-water mark. Hovering gulls cawed. Seaweed tangled around a row of PVC tubes anchoring an array of unattended surf-casting rods. Someone in headphones swept a metal detector over the sand. He stopped and dug up a rusty bicycle chain, studied it curiously, then reburied it.
North of the boardwalk, a column of upscale hotels and resorts had begun a ferocious sprout, but someone had thought to save the historic band shell. In the southeast corner of the nearest hotel, a light went on in one of the upper suites. A silhouette appeared behind the drapes. Below on the beach, a man in headphones rested the metal detector against his leg and raised a pair of binoculars.
The shadow moved back and forth behind the curtains. The man on the beach counted floors up the side of the hotel. The shadow disappeared from the window. The light went out.
The man with the metal detector grabbed a small Motorola two-way radio from his pocket. “Blue?”
“Blue here …”
“This is red. He just left. Fifteenth floor, southeast corner.”
“Sure the room’s clear?”
“Saw it with my own eyes. I’ll be in the bar to make sure he doesn’t come back up.”
Five minutes later the lighted numbers over the elevator ticked up to “15.” Doors opened. Men in maintenance overalls walked quickly down the empty hall, followed by a cluster of bodyguards around a taller man in a leather jacket.
Normally, the Eel would never let himself be caught within ten miles of a job, but there had been a recent pandemic of screw-ups. They neared the suite at the southeast corner. The first to reach the door set his toolbox on the ground. He removed a small electrical device the size of a garage opener and plugged a wire into the side. The wire’s other end attached to a thin strip of metal that he ran through the room’s magnetic card scanner. They went inside.
The search was silent and swift. At least in the beginning. They went straight for the bottom left dresser drawer and flipped it over on the bed. That’s where their inside information said the courier always taped his packets of stones.
They stared at bare wood.
“Maybe he changed drawers.”
Out came the rest.
“Well?” said the Eel.
The maintenance men shook their heads and slowly stepped backward.
The Eel’s eye-bulging face turned deep crimson. “What kind of ignorant fuckheads do I have working for me?”
“But that’s every drawer. You’re here. You saw it-“
“Son of a bitch!” The Eel marched forward and flicked open a ridiculously large switchblade.
“Please! No!-“
A two-way radio squawked.
The Eel punched a wall. “What now?”
“Blue? Are you there? This is red. Come in …”
The Eel’s eyes signaled a temporary reprieve. One of the maintenance men grabbed the radio. “Blue here. We copy.”
“There’s trouble …”
MEANWHILE …
The Javelin rolled past a drive-in church and turned onto Van Avenue. Serge parked at the curb in front of a quaint ranch house, tastefully landscaped. He raised his camera.
“Dammit!” said Story. “You’re going to make me late!”
“Relax.” Click, click, click. “A travel professional always builds in a time cushion.”
“That’s what you said up the road at the other place. I only agreed because I thought it was going to be your only photo stop.”
“That’s right, it was. Seabreeze High School, where they played their first gigs. But this is the Allman Brothers childhood home.” Click, click, click. “It’s your fault.”
“Mine?”
“You know what kind of person I am. How could you expect me to be so close to the cradle of southern rock and not get sucked into its gravity well? Gregg and ‘Sky Dog’ Duane probably skateboarded right on this very street.”